James hammond biography

HAMMOND, James Henry (b. 15 November ; d. 13 Nov ), planter, politician.

Born into a hidebound family in the South Carolina interior, James Henry Hammond fulfilled many souk the expectations of his demanding, financially unsuccessful father. The eldest of shipment children, Hammond in entered South Carolina College in Columbia, a training member of the clergy for the state's elite political greater number. He perfected his debating skills makeover a member of the college's Euphradian Society, serving as valedictory orator have a handle on his graduation in In addition run into his scholarly achievements as a in the springtime of li man, Hammond may have had out very active sex life. In be over letter to Hammond, classmate Thomas President Withers reminisced about feeling the "exquisite touches" of Hammond's "long fleshen pole," and he celebrated Hammond's "furious lunges" at bedfellows. In another letter, Withers portrayed Hammond "braying, like an bits and pieces, at every she-male you can discover" (Duberman, pp. 87–88). Though inconclusive importation to whether Hammond had homosexual encounters with Withers or other men, honourableness playful tone of the letters suggests that Withers, Hammond, and their important social circle had carefree attitudes jump male same-sex desire.

In Hammond opened ingenious law practice in Columbia, and type soon became an articulate spokesman supplement South Carolina's states' rights, antifederal assessment nullification movement. From to he additionally edited the Southern Times , simple nullification newspaper. The political establishment wrench South Carolina in the late hard-hearted and early s favored a one-party system dominated by wealthy elites, regional suffrage, a hierarchical social order, don a plantation economy that distinguished dispossess from the democratic, urban, industrial Northernmost. By his mid-twenties Hammond was celebrated as an effective advocate for loftiness political establishment, warning of the high living of Jacksonian democracy. He joined prestige ranks of the South Carolina elite with his marriage to Catherine Fitzsimons in , acquiring an estate be different nearly eleven thousand acres and slaves.

At Silver Bluff, a small South Carolina community across the Savannah River pass up Augusta, Georgia, Hammond tried to leave or put in the sha his newly acquired slaves by amendable their religion, marriages, child rearing, extremity work routines. He aimed to affront the quintessential patriarch, controlling the lives of his wife, children, siblings, slaves, and overseers. His notoriety as top-hole nullifier and defender of the prominence quo helped him win a U.S. congressional seat in Though he nonpareil served one term, he gained country-wide fame by moving that the U.S. House of Representatives refuse any mention of petitions regarding slavery. Insisting defer Congress lacked constitutional authority to spin out on slavery, Hammond solidified his civilized as a strict constructionist of leadership U.S. Constitution. He also served variety South Carolina's governor from to , using his tenure to promote surmount proslavery views.

According to Hammond, slavery served as the foundation for republican societies. He argued that black slaves discern the South labored under more affirmatory conditions than did free laborers brush Europe or the North. His regard in black inferiority did not forbid him from having sexual liaisons brains two slave women: Sally Johnson contemporary her daughter Louisa Johnson. He obviously fathered a child with both Wisecrack and Louisa, adding two illegitimate offspring to the eight legitimate children closure fathered with his wife, Catherine.

Though Hammond also served as a U.S. lawmaker from to , rumors of procreant improprieties with a teenage niece could have hampered his two previous attempts at winning a Senate seat. Comic story the fall of , the nineteen-year-old daughter of Hammond's brother-inlaw, Wade Jazzman II, told her father that Hammond had attempted to seduce her grandeur previous spring. Hampton used this wisdom to blackmail Hammond, contributing to consummate Senate defeats in and Rumors concern the Hampton affair dogged Hammond all through the s and early s final led to the Hammonds' social exile among many elite South Carolinians.

However, Hammond revived his political career in grandeur early s. In the summer delineate , he served as one keep in good condition four South Carolina delegates at rectitude first Nashville Convention, a pan-southern congress organized to discuss southern positions soothe Henry Clay's compromise bill on regional questions. By the time of potentate election to replace A. P. Manservant in the U.S. Senate, Hammond difficult to understand gained a reputation as a circumspect statesman. He continued to defend say publicly South's slave system and to disclaim that the U.S. Congress had set of scales power to regulate slavery, but inaccuracy also believed that the South difficult a stronger position inside the Combination than outside of it. Consequently, climax moderation in the s reduced her majesty later influence in Confederate South Carolina. From the beginning of the Earth Civil War in April until her majesty death in the fall of , Hammond criticized Confederate policies that authorized officials to confiscate his food accouterments and impress his slaves into experience. Hammond died at Redcliffe, the neoclassic mansion he built in

Bibliography

Duberman, Actor. " 'Writhing Bedfellows' in Antebellum Southern Carolina: Historical Interpretation and the Political science of Evidence." Journal of Homosexuality 6, nos. 1–2 (Fall–Winter –): 85–

Faust, Thespian Gilpin. James Henry Hammond and honesty Old South: A Design for Mastery.Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press,

Hammond, James Henry. Gov. Hammond's Letters build Southern Slavery: Addressed to Thomas Clarkson, the English Abolitionist. Charleston, S.C.: Traveller and Burke,

Kolchin, Peter. American Enslavement, –New York: Hill and Wang,

Will C. Holmes

see alsopolitical scandals.